Why the Tri-Cities is a great hiking destination

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Transcript

 and I'm your co-host Craig Romano.

Craig and I are happy to have you here. We provide practical and timely seasonal hiking advice for hikers, trail runners, and potential hikers and trail runners of all skill and ability levels that is helpful, accurate, fun, and inclusive.

 

Our sponsor for the month of March is visit Tri-Cities, which is really exciting because this is the time of year that the sun starts to sound really amazing. So if you're looking for a new Washington landscape to explore, discover what's in you in the Tri-Cities. Hike above the last free flowing stretch of the Columbia River at White Bluffs.

Explore the quiet shrub step trails of the Hanford Reach, or climb Badger and Candy Mountain for sweeping basin views. Here you'll find wide open spaces, dramatic geology, and more than 300 days of sense. Sunshine each year. Set up a base camp, hit the trail and stay for the sunsets. Plan your trip at visit.

Try cities.com and discover what's in you.

We are so grateful to visit Tri-Cities for sponsoring this month and today Craig and I have an interview for you about the Tri-Cities area as a hiking destination, and we're looking forward to diving into some of these topics more deeply throughout the month of March.

Enjoy the show.

Our guest today is Kevin from the Tri-Cities and Kevin Lewis is the CEO of Visit Tri-Cities.

And so that means his job is to help people know how awesome it is. Craig and I already think it's pretty awesome. So we're gonna have a little tri cities love fest here, which is important because many of our listeners are along the I five Corridor and may not know how awesome this part of the state is.

So we're talking about Eastern Washington kind of. East of Yakima, west of Pullman, north of the gorge, south of I 90. So that kind of basic idea. Kevin, welcome to the Washington State Hiking Podcast. Thanks so much for being here. Okay. 

Well, it's great to be with you, Jennie and Craig. , Thanks for your invitation.

We're excited about the conversation. 

Yeah. And thank you so much for being our sponsor this month. That's really fun, working with you all. I know Craig has worked with you before, so that's very exciting. Okay, so Kevin, can you start off by telling ev everyone what brought you to the Tri-Cities?

For sure. I was living in southern Utah St. George, Utah area, near Zion National Park. Beautiful Red Rock Desert Country down there. It's an incredible place. We raised our family down there. Spent 32 years there, and I was the doing the same thing there that I am here. It was running the destination marketing organization for that area.

Loving it down there, but had been doing it for a while. A recruiter reached out, this is three and a half years ago now. Reached out and said that they had been watching what I'd done and thought I might fit a position that they were recruiting for. And it was the CEO position up here at Visit Tri-Cities.

And I was just in a place in life when, you know, it felt like a pretty good opportunity for me to. Go see some other part of country, right? Been in the southwest for a long time and you know, I've traveled quite a bit, but hadn't lived in the northwest and and so, we dipped our toe in and kind of went down the road and one thing led to another, and here I am.

So that, that's what got me here. 

So Kevin you didn't get tired of the heat. In southern Utah. So you came to the Northwest and then quickly learned that Southeastern Washington has a climate very similar to the Southwest. 

Exactly, Craig. I mean that, in fact, that was one of the things that kind of attracted me to this destination because I looked at temperature living in the Southwest.

Yeah, some pretty hot summers, but some great winters Falls, Springs, just incredible down there. And we got used to that and I I got used to not having snow and not a lot of rain. So when I looked at the bell curve of. You know, temperatures and rain moisture, whatever it was very similar.

I'm gonna say probably five to 10 degrees cooler in the summers here, and about five to 10 degrees cooler in the winters, usually on average. But otherwise just a almost the exact same curve timeframe. That you've got winter months and whatever. So honestly, that was one of the things that attracted me.

'cause I don't think I wanted to go to snow , and getting a little bit cooler Summer would be great for me. So, yeah. 

Yeah. That's real. I was wondering if like, when, if you knew this was Washington, if at first you were like, oh, it's gonna be raining all the time. Oh wait, no. Not there.

Yeah. Yeah. The other Washington for sure. 

Yeah, definitely. 

It's so many pe it's interesting when you travel, I mean, when you mention Washington State, they immediately think rain and of course, you know, a good part of the population lives in those wet areas. And there might be some of our listeners out there.

Who have not spent much time in the eastern half of the state. And you're gonna find, boy, spring comes early, fall stays late. You can do lots of great, outdoor activity when we're still gray and wet over on this side of the state. So, yeah, they, that. Tri-Cities is a great place when you need a dose of sunshine and California's too far and we're, you're just a couple hours away, so 

Yes.

Yeah. AB absolutely. We love the blue sky and sunshine for sure. I'm a, I'm definitely a creature of that. I'm a creature of the light, I say, and so I get up with the sun and, you know. Unfortunately, sometimes I go to bed with the sun 

in December. You're like, okay, it's four 30. It's time for bed. 

It's so funny how that, how your body clock can work that way.

Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. But you're up at, you're up at four in the morning, but then man, when that sun goes down, it's it's a time to bed. Yeah, for 

sure. Yeah. Yeah, 

yeah. But just really a neat destination over here. And as you said, Craig, just so different from. The, you know, most of the state and everybody that I told when I was moving up here said, are you taking an umbrella?

Are you da? And I've done some research and I don't think we're going to, you know, almost the exact same amount of precipitation here as in St. George, Utah. Yeah. And annual precipitation was about the same, so. 

Mm-hmm. 

But we got up here and got our feet on the ground and, you know, I started immediately trying to explore the area.

And just sort of expand my circle of knowledge of the destination as the CEO here of Visit Tri-Cities. I have a responsibility to know what this place is all about and I'm the kind of person that likes to get out and experience it. And so, so that was fun to do. It was a, you know, a couple of years honestly, of just like.

You know, after work, early mornings on the weekends just trying to immerse myself in everything there is to do here. And I haven't done it all. I certainly haven't hiked every trail here or eaten at every restaurant, but I've gotten a pretty good taste of it. I often tell people, if you're gonna move across the country to a new place, you might as well be a tourism director because you'll get a, an instant welcome to everything there is to do there.

Yeah. It's such a great way to. Go to a new place, I'm sure. Yeah. So Kevin, can you talk a little bit about, you know, we're all about hiking here, but just for a little bit of context, what is kind of unique about this part of Washington, where the Tri-Cities is located? Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Absolutely. You know, hiking here is different than in other areas of the state, just plain and simply. It's different. And I think what you need to, , to do when you come to, to experience it here is learn to appreciate the differences. Again, coming from I came from southern Utah, mountainous desert country, , all kinds of different terrain features and.

And big mountains, you know? And when I came here, I remember people were talking about Badger Mountain, and I was looking around looking for the mountain, right? So, right. 

Because it kind of is more like a hill if you're from a mountainy place. 

Yeah. But it's but as I looked deeper and I guess what I, you know, what I try to do is just you see the different layers of a destination.

And so as I became more and more familiar with the layers of it, I mean, I'm gonna tell you a secret here. When I moved here, the Columbia River was massive, right? We got the Columbia, the snake, and the Yakima that all con, you know, confl, the confluences here, those three rivers. Yeah. And there was water everywhere.

And I was just stunned at how much water there was coming from the desert. Just how big those rivers were. 

Yeah. 

And then, like I said, I was sort of, you know. Eyes open to what I thought were small mountains and the longer I've been here, the river has gotten smaller and the mountains have gotten bigger.

Now that's just a weird little metaphor, I guess, of what you experience when you immerse yourself into something. You know, the river became more commonplace and as I started to notice, there is all kinds of terrain feature here. You get up on the, , on the plateaus, 'cause you were in the basin at the river.

And so when you, as you move out from the area, you rise up a little bit and then as you're looking from a higher vista. Back across, you can see the different you know, undulations in the land and the landscape. You see that too when you're hiking. You as you're working through these, what look like hills that kind of just seem round and flat almost, you know, kind of one dimensional as you hike them, they're not, there's all kinds of different levels and layers that you're working through.

Yeah. 

And so it's, it, to me it's a, it's a. An opportunity for us to move, , get away from, like, if you're coming from the west side and you've seen big jagged peaks in the cascades and you've seen beautiful pine trees and all of that, and you come out here and you don't see the trees.

You see views forever. But you see, you see a different type of plant life and foliage. You do, you see a different type of wildlife and you see horizons that go on and on. I was sitting next to somebody one afternoon at a, at an event and the sun was going down and they said, this is one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever seen.

Yeah. 

And it's like, it kind of took me off guard. I was kind of new to it. And, but I have come to appreciate that beauty in a way that's just, I think Enrichened myself as a person, because I can see deeper into a landscape that is, in some ways it's it's more striking than a great big mountain peak, you know?

'Cause it's a little stark, right? 

It's funny you mentioned that, Kevin, because that's been one of my people who follow on my writings. It's one of my themes. I'm constantly harping, you know, I grew up in the northeast, a very forested area. Lots of water live in the northwest part of the Washington very forested area.

Water. And I'll tell you some of the places I absolutely love hiking. I was in the Kansas tall grass prairie. I was just in Southern Nevada. Not that these open spaces that are just in for a lot of people, there's like, there's nothing. There's. So much there. And same thing, the first time when I moved out here, I was on the west part of the state and the first time I went to the Tri-City areas and it was one of those things I first got in there and I wasn't quite sure what to make of this large basin area and everything very different.

And then every time I've gone back again. The subtlety, the nature of kayaking the Columbia River through the Hanford reach and seeing 300 foot dunes and swallows that are nesting in there in Pelican or standing on Badger Mountain. And on a clear day and seeing Mount Adams in Mount Rainier in the di and realize we're a lot closer than a peer.

I mean, how, but again, one of the most striking things, and you mentioned it. It's the geological history when you stand on these and you realize you get to one point, it's marked with the great floods, the Missoula floods and how it was all scoured out. And you know, it is just, these giant waterfalls through the scab lands.

Again, just seeing how the changes of the land and then, you know, coming up very shortly this time of year. You're gonna realize there's a lot more plant life there than you think. Things are gonna be blossoming. There's cactus in Washington, all kinds of flowers. It's a transition between rocky mountain species and Great basin and cascade.

It's, but yeah, to train, you have to slow and not realize, I'm not looking for Mount Rainier, I'm not looking for that. You're looking for something totally different and it's gonna blow you away. 

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Craig. Yeah. Really appreciate the perspective that you've seen. We tend to be kind of drive by lookers.

Right? And, you know, you come out well this is interesting, you know, that we've driven over the west side and back and forth and. My, my wife one of the first times we went through Columbia River Gorge, we went over that way. And and then on the way back she said, you know, it's almost like somebody had a green crayon and they were coloring and they ran out and they reached down and grabbed another one and picked it up and just started coloring with a different color.

Yeah. And the color scape changes, you know. But like you say, you start to look a little bit and you see things that you didn't expect. You see things that are, that, that deepen and enrichen your appreciation for this earth that we live on, and the way that it the unique differences in landscapes and weather patterns and foliage and everything else.

I, we hosted for the first time a couple years ago, we brought in an Ironman 70.3 race to the Tri-Cities. 

Nice. 

And it was a, it's a great event. So we've hosted that for two years now. The most common comment that I hear from people who come in to participate in the event is I had no idea.

They lived on the west side. They've driven through the Tri-Cities on their way to Spokane or somewhere else, you know, and and just never really paid attention. And when you get off of the freeway and put yourself down. On the river, like you said, you kayak the river, go along the river trail.

You see this beautiful, , parkland around our communities. Just river trails. We've got a 23 mile s river Heritage Trail. It's a paved path that then connects to other paths that go out into the communities further. You get yourself down in there and you go, wow. I just had no idea.

It, it's a beautiful place to live, a great place to raise a family. Lots of, you know, it's safe, it's friendly. And that's the other comment too, I think that you'll hear from people is they just didn't realize that people were so friendly here. Right. Yeah. 

They're definitely friendlier. I know.

It's wonderful. And you're part of the state than on the coast. Absolutely. Yeah. And I notice that all the time I'm there and that's part of, I really enjoy being there on the trails and running the area. People are very friendly. 

Something.



But there is de, there's a definite difference here. The friendliness of people here is just, you know, I, I. Crazy story. I was on the, on my flight up here for the first time I was coming to the Tri-Cities talking to somebody on the plane who was from here and you know, we just sort of had, , having a conversation on the way.

And before the end of the flight, I was invited over to dinner that night at their house. 

That's 

awesome, right? That it's like that, that's the kind of friendliness that you're finding, you know, just really good people who care about each other. So 

yeah, 

combine that with some really interesting, unique scenery and some great weather and blue skies and you got a neat combination 

for sure.

, In this time of year. I feel like it's extra magical, especially for those of us on the west side, you know, , so I was born in Seattle and I grew up in Edmonds. And when I was a kid we had a family friend that lived in the Tri-Cities. So we would go over there about once a year, and it was always at the end of the summer.

And then as an adult, I went there in like April. 

Mm-hmm. 

And I was like, oh, this is a completely different. Landscape at a different time of year, you know, with like the flowers and everything being green, you know, and in the later in the summer it is not green. 

Yeah. 

You know, accepted people's yards and that kind of thing.

Yeah. So before we get into a little more about hikes and like. You know, food and stuff like that. Kevin, could you, I know we've well covered the fact that it's sunny because Craig and I are like, it's sunny and it's the time of year where we're like, oh, we need sun. So yes, it's sunny and dry, but can you talk a little more about like.

Kind of the different, what the different seasons are because I feel like hikers need to know like it's very hot in the summer. 

But Jennie, I have to dis I have to dispel, and I'm sure Kevin will tell him we have this in this drive, but it can be. So I ran the Badger Mountain 50 last year. It's in March and it was the coldest wettest ultra I did all year.

It was brutal. And I was up on horse heaven, mountains exposed 30 mile an hour, wind, sideways, rain. It was great training, so, so. You do have winter there. I don't want people to think that it's Palm Springs. Yeah. Okay. 

Right. So that's why we're asking the question is like, so when, maybe just kind of tell us a little bit about the seasons and like from your perspective.

Yep. Like what's the best time of year to visit? 

Okay. Yeah. Maybe I'll give you, 

especially for hikers. Yeah. 

Give you my introduction to it, you know. So I moved up here in December of 22, and I don't know if you remember December of 22. It was really cold. , I moved into snow. I came up here, there was snow here, and I.

Did. I came from a place where there wasn't snow 

and you were like, wait, this isn't what I signed up for. 

Yeah. Yeah. I had a couple of those moments, you know? Yeah. Like, wait. Yeah. You know, people, there's a term thrown around 300 days of sunshine in the Tri-Cities. Right. And yeah, depending on how you count, you might get 300 days, but I don't think I saw the sun for, you know, two weeks.

It was 

right. 'cause the first 14 days were part of the 50 that it's not sunny. 

That's right. Yeah. You know, but I had high hopes that okay, the rest of the year is gonna be, but so, so we do have winter. It does get cold. And this year of course we haven't had a touch of snow.



Same here. 

Yeah. Just a really unique year this year. Very little rain. I mean, we did get some rain in, in, in the late fall. We got, you know, some pretty good rain here. , It'll, we'll get the average rainfall. Average precipitation a year is about 10 inches here. 

Yeah. 

And that usually comes between roughly November and maybe mid-February.

Mm-hmm. And then there's not much more like, like you said, Craig, you can get a March storm that comes in and you might get, you know, well, welcome to winter again. You know? 

Yeah. It was nice weather on both ends of that. It just happened to be, that was the day, it was even the first few hours we were running in the sun and then all of a sudden.

Things turn south, 

It'll change on you. We had a similar thing with our Ironman this year for, you know, started out sunny and then the rain came in. So midday was cool and kind of a little bit of rain and then it cleared off again. So, it, that'll happen in the, in, in the spring and fall.

But but your temperatures typically are not too bad. That year that I was here was an exception that December and January was pretty cold. But, you know, you're gonna get down to freezing at night. And it'll get, it'll warm up in the day. You're gonna be forties and fifties and a little bit of gray.

But then that sun starts to poke out, , mid, mid to late January you start seeing the sun more and the spring just is beautiful. And you guys know the history of this area that you mentioned, the ice age floods and the mm-hmm. You know, the, what happened to the soil here was. Remarkable. , You just got this huge, these huge deposits of incredibly great topsoil.

And I, you know, I've been told any, anything will grow here. You can get water to it, right? Mm-hmm. You can grow anything if you can get water to it. And so, you know, through through a lot of effort with the Grand Cooley Dam up above they diverted the water up there and brought it out to the plateaus here and started irrigating this back in the 19 what?

Fifties, I guess. 

Yeah, it sounds right. Mm-hmm. 

Yeah. So, so suddenly you're growing, you have this incredible, , farm agriculture landscape that, again, potatoes, onions, all the fruit that comes outta here, the cherries, the wine grapes, the you'd name it it's just such a fertile place and so.

When you talk about them, you know, hiking in the spring Okay. That moisture's there and everything starts to pop. All these little delicate plants, right? The wild flowers that are just, , you have to look for 'em if you gotta pay attention for a minute, but when you see them start to pop, it's really remarkable.

Yeah. So spring is great. 'cause your sun's out. Temperatures are up and you're doing, you got a great chance to see things come to life again. 

And let's April on Badger Mountain is magical. And for all those reasons you just said. And the other thing I should mention, especially people on the west side who's terrified the east side, like there's rattles stakes over there.

One of the nice things, again, first of all I very rarely see rattle snakes. I spend a lot of time they're very timid. But when you have those cold nights. In the spring still, and, you know, the snakes, I mean, they're cold-blooded. They're, 

yeah, 

you're probably not gonna encounter 'em. So if you're a little skittish about snakes, April's a great time to be there as well.



Good time. Yeah. So, so that's my goal this year is to get out more and see a little bit more of that. There, there's some great hikes over in the reach National Monument, which I think you're gonna have an episode specifically on that we 

are. 

Yeah. 

You know, that, that one I think is one that I you just really should try and do.

Kenny, you wanna see 

some 

fun fact and spoiler alert, that is one of my five favorite hikes in Washington's, 

one of my 100 classic hikes in my a hundred classic hikes book too. Yeah. The Hanford 

Reach. Wow. Wow. That's just, that says so much right there from two people 

who 

have done all time. 

Yeah. It's amazing.

That's why we're gonna do a whole episode about it. Yeah. And next week we're talking about wildflower hikes for. Like, especially for April. So you have a little time to plan. Yeah. And that was, we have talked a little bit about that before, but that a listener was like, Hey, can you say more about Eastern Washington Wildflower hike?

So we are saying more about it next week. 

Nice. 

Nice. 

Yeah. 

Oh, anything else you wanna talk about seasonally, Kevin? 

So then yeah, you're gonna get into your summer starts to warm up and June, , July, August are the hottest months those two. And then it starts tailing off again. , We do our Iron Man event in September, usually just beautiful weather.

Once, once you get past the third week of August, it just, you know, beautiful. Fall. We do get some fall colors. It's not the fall colors of New England, you know, but it's fall colors in, its in its place. Right. I didn't mention too, in the spring again, because of all that, all, you know, all the.

The fruit trees and the whatever. Some you drive around in the spring and I hadn't seen this coming from southern Utah, but all of the different colors of blossoms that are out was, that's just, that was beautiful to me. There, there's some really neat color here. Yeah. And then you're, you know, wall is a really good time to hike and then you're back at it.

Yeah, back in the winter, you know, 

and I will say, listeners, I know you hear Craig and I say on this podcast all the time, like, oh, over wherever. It's too hot in summer. Okay. That's an opinion, right? Mm-hmm. If you're somebody like my dad who grew up in the tropics and you're, you always wear a coat in Seattle, even in July or Bellingham or Tacoma or whatever mm-hmm.

And you're, you wanna be like hot, then go to the Tri-Cities in July or August and then you can just like roast. And for people who love it. That is a place for you. 

Yeah. And if you want, if you get down by the water. It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. 

It is. Even I will say that while it's hot, the water is awesome in the summer.

Yeah, for sure. Your temperature drops when you're close to the river. Yeah. You can get in the river if you want to from 

Yeah. Not freeze to death, which is amazing. 

I come from Southern Utah and I'm loving the summers up here. You know, we dropped to, , five. Five or so degrees.

That's beautiful. You know, it just, yeah. I mean, you're sitting, you're gonna hit triple digits in July and August, but only for a couple of hours in the day. 

Mm-hmm. 

It has to ramp up to that, and then it ramps off of it pretty quickly, and so mm-hmm. You get up in the morning and hike, it's great.

Yeah. 

It's not you, it's not. Nailed it at 

night. 

Yeah. When I'm in those areas again, I, and I love Jennie's this word different too. 'cause I grew up on the East coast, so I grew up with heat, with humidity, and 

I'm like, no, thank you. And Trace Cities is never humid. 

No. There's no humidity. And so, but one of the nice things, so I have a high, I have a tolerance to heat, but so one of the things I like too, in the summertime I'm an early riser.

Like you, Kevin, I like to get up, you know, four or five o'clock in the morning. Best time to hit the trail. The weather's very agreeable and that's when all your wildlife is moving around too, because they don't wanna be out in the heat. So you're gonna see all kinds of stuff. And again, the rattlesnakes won't be out because they need that sunlight.

So you're gonna see things you wanna see. Yeah. So, so, yeah, 

exactly. Craig, I haven't seen a rattlesnake since I've been up here, so three 

years of 

it. 

And that's the thing I would think, 

Hey, 

apparently I can count how many times I've seen rattlesnakes in the state, but people are so, you always hear, they're always so worried about 'em.

Yeah. And most of the places where I've seen 'em is Wenatchee. So, so, but yeah I'm trying to think in all my times, hiking in the Tri-Cities, Hanford, reach. I have not seen a rattlesnake in that area. Yeah, 

I've seen a rattlesnake every time I've been for reach. Every time 

you're a snake magnet. 

Yeah. I guess I am.

Every I, but honestly, so I'm not too bothered by snakes. Like I'm not dying to get bitten by a snake, that's for sure. Sure. 

Yeah. 

But like, I haven't had a bad experience that said, you know, I've been like, oh, okay, there's a snake in the trail, or there's a snake over there on that rock. I haven't. And I am usually there in like spring or fall.

So they are a little cold. 

Slower. Slower. Yeah. And they won't bother you. 

They're a little 

if you're not harassing them, that's 

the thing. Yeah. You can see, , I feel bad because I'll like see a snake that's like. Trying to get into the hot sun 'cause it's still like 40 at night or whatever. And then, you know, my happy self comes by and the snake is like, ah.

Like it's okay. A snake. You don't stay there. I'll just go round. But they don't do that. Of course, they, anyway. So I agree with you that I haven't had a bad experience, but I have seen a lot of snakes, rattlesnakes in Eastern Washington? Yeah. 

Well I think it's, 

oh, in Eastern one, but not in the base. Not in the Tri-Cities area.

Have you? Yeah, I mean 

in the tri, yes. 

Yeah. I, yeah, I Every 

time. 

Oh, 

every time. Every time. 

Yeah. 

I think it's a, you know, it's a fair point. I mean, they are native here. They hang out. So you want to be prepared as a hiker for sure. And just know to give 'em their space and, you know, 

, I, so once I finally looked at the statistics about, 'cause Jennie's saying I don't wanna be bitten by one who does.

, No one's ever died in the state from a rattlesnake bite. And the amount of bite, I mean, the only people that have been bitten each year by a rattlesnake, and this is interesting. It's just a handful.

Almost, in all cases, it's young males and it was the, they're out, Hey, you know, hold my beer. Let me go catch this snake. It's not a hiker. I don't do that. Being ambushed. Yeah, so it's really interesting. When you look at the statistics, you're cha, I mean, again, I'm running on these trails. Even in Wenatchee, I'm running all of a sudden rattle.

It's down here just saying, Hey dude I'm right here. Don't walk on me. You know? Yeah. You'll 

pay attention. Yeah. Okay, so Kevin. Can you tell us about a few of your favorite hikes in the Tri-Cities area that you've gotten to do in your first three years? There? 

Yeah. Well, I, you know, I think you have to start with Badger Mountain, you know, and I made my, yeah.

You know, my point about okay, is this is a mountain, but you know, what I think I love most about Badger Mountain, maybe this is maybe not most about it, but is sort of the behind the scenes story of this, you guys familiar with the friends of Badger Mountain? You know, in the eighties this land was starting to be developed and somebody put up 570 acres for sale and this group of.

Very cool People said, wait, we don't want hills all over the ridges there. We want this, you know, to keep this stuff. And so they put together, the friends of Badger Mountain started raising some money and they actually purchased and this, I don't know if you know this story, but they purchased the mountain, essentially.

It was 570 plus acres for, $750,000. Try and get that today. Right. But the foresight behind that because what they've created is a, just an incredible network of trails that work not only on Badger Mountain, but they've continued that through. Little badger and candy, and there's a master plan of trails.

And Craig, you've run those trails. You've been all over 'em. 

Right. And I should mention too, the friends are incredible. The ultra that we do, that's who's receiving the money? It's a big fundraiser for the friends and an amazing organization. Yeah. 

Yeah. Could have easily just been turned into real estate, you know, that could and you wouldn't have it.

But so, so that one is, that one's really a pleasure. You do an early morning hike go up to go up badger, go up candy any of them. There's a number of 'em, and I did one a couple of weeks ago. Took my little dog with me. We weren't in a, you know, we were in a lazy mood. And so I did one of the, one of the trails that wraps around the edges of it.

That was great. It was a, it, we had a really great hike and like I say, you see those, yeah, those, you know, nuances of the mountain where the waters run down and whatever. They've got a great, with that friends organization, we try to take our company out. You know, and do some trail work once a year at least, , get our employees out on the mountain and help support some of that stuff.

So, I'll put that one, as a sort of it's one of the must-dos. 

Yeah, definitely. 



I'll say you, you know, if you're in town and you just want to get out for a little exploration, there's a great little preserve called Chana. That you can get to and it's, you're not gonna get a lot of elevation gain or anything in there, but there's some neat trails that wander around the Yakima River and through that area.

And so you just wanna get off, off on the dirt a little bit. You can do some exploring there. 

And that's the other thing, Kevin, you spent that chime is part of the tap till Greenway. Which is another organization like the Friends, the Greenway they're coming together to, to protect that at the confluence of the Yakima and Columbia.

And the TapTeal was the indigenous name for the Yakima River. So a lot of history in that area. And amazing that confluence too. A lot of wetlands. Great place for Birdwatching wildlife area. And yeah, zero elevation gain. Very family friendly.

Yeah. Yeah, and like you say, I mean, it just there's just a whole network of little trails along there that you can just pick up and whether you're going down the river or around through some of the core area of it.

Nice little place. One of 'em that I didn't know much about, and this was a couple years ago, but a couple days before Christmas I went down to Wallula Gap. Did the twin sisters again? I got a little, I got a little shihtzu. He is my hiking buddy. Right. And he is, he's getting older.

So he, I don't do anything too aggressive with him. But we went down there two days before Christmas and. You know, when you get out there and hike, it's some really neat formations, rock formations, and then you're looking over the Columbia River, the gap there where the whole ice age flood, , was sort of ground zero of when that sort of broke through and down the Columbia gorge.

But so, so that's really striking. But what caught me the most was as you look out, you're looking down towards Oregon, you're looking across the Columbia River. All of the land was green. It was like things were in bloom all and this is December 23rd, , so it was just, to me it was like kind of surprising.

It's like we're in the, we're in the heart of winter and things are just starting to grow here. And I don't know exactly what that plant is, but I love that hike. And that's a fun one. That's, you know, for me it's just 20 minute drive and I can pop down there. You know, those are a couple of my favorites.

Love those. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. And listeners, in addition to those awesome ideas from Kevin, some of which you might have heard about before or will again in the next couple weeks, we're gonna be sharing. Some more depth about some specific places, and I am excited about next week's wildflower episode. So which goes beyond Tri-Cities, other parts of Eastern Washington, but that'll be cool.

Okay, before we start bringing things in to the close here, Kevin, can you so. If you're going to Tri-Cities for a hike, and if you're coming from the I five corridor in Washington or Northern Oregon where most of our listeners are, not all, we see you Wenatchee in Spokane and Tri-Cities and Yakima listeners too.

If someone is gonna make a weekend out of this experience in the Tri-Cities, kind of from your perspective of seeing the big picture, I know it's a little bit political to talk about your personal favorites and you might not be able to do that, but what advice do you have for folks who are planning a weekend?

Like what are some good you know, what are kind of your suggestions for that or things you think people shouldn't miss in their post hike experience? 

Yeah. Well, I think of this as I bring, I brought my family up here, like, what are we gonna go see? Right? And and I love the river. Like I said, it was, you know, when I first flew in here and saw this and then started getting around it, I just love the river.

So make sure that you find some time to get down to the river. And there's a couple of great places, Columbia Point. There's a marina there there's a park there. It's where we, it's where we start and finish our Ironman race. Mm-hmm. The riverfront parks and trails are just phenomenal and, you know, if you just wanna get out and do a hike or a run or walk or run along there, so if you stay somewhere along that area.

Or if you stay, you know, a little further in town you're only gonna be 10 minutes away no matter where you are in the Tri-Cities. Right. Pasco, Richland, Kennewick you're 10 minutes from the river, no matter where you are. Yeah. Or closer. 

Yep. 

Get down on the river and do the riverfront trail.

And I used to like to, you know, rent e-bikes and just, we'd just jump on and we'd cruise the whole trail system on an e-bike. 

Yeah. 

If you're a runner, you can do that just as easily that way. But there's just some really neat features along the way. One of which is, it is just kind of a fun little thing that is some nuances.

They've marked a group has marked there's a starting point with that indicates where the sun would be. Okay. And then they did a scale model. And so you go along the trail system and you will see where is. Mercury, Venus, earth Mar 

Yeah. Relationships. Yeah. Like, like a planet. Like a planet walk.

Yeah. 

Yeah. 

I'm seeing more and more of those in my travels. It's really cool. They're really cool. Especially the first couple are all bunched together, and then boy, it gets farther and farther. So you really get that perspective of how far things are out there. Like, 

Neptune is out there.

It's 

way, they're way out there. Way 

out there. 

It's like miles to get to Neptune. You're like, what? Yeah. 

There's another thing at the end of, it's not on the, well, one of the riverfront trail in Richland, but it goes out to port of Benton and there's a submarine sail that the one of the nuclear subs, the first one that went all the way around the globe underwater, a complete circumvented the globe.

They've got the. The they call it the sale, which you can actually go in and look through the Periscope and look around the Tri-Cities through a periscope. Just some neat little things like that. They're great restaurants along the river. Lots of places to eat and, you know, so, so that, that's my recommendation.

Tri-Cities is known for wine. You know, 90% of the grapes that are Washington wines are grown here. So, get out to see some of the vineyards, even if you're not a wine drinker, there's some with some great food and whatever, and you just some good vistas and good company and good experience there.

Yeah. 



That's good advice. Yeah. 

Yeah. And and then like, like we're talking, hiking would be my next thing. It's like, get up and see the landscape a little bit. 

Yeah. I'm gonna say as a person who doesn't represent the Tri-Cities, that my favorite place to eat in the Tri-Cities is the bombing Range Brewing Company.

Oh, there you go. 

They have. Like 8 million different, not 8 million, probably nine different kinds of like house made mac and cheese. 

Yep. Yep. 

It's really good. Especially after a hike and it's right there next to the visitor center for the Manhattan Project, national Historic site and yeah, which is hence the name.

And they also have good beer. But even if you don't like beer, it's still a great, it's a great place. And there's tons of great wineries, like you said. 

Yeah, there are we created last year a we call it our tap trail. And so there's a map 

Ooh, 

Of the breweries that you can go to. You check that out.

Interesting. Yeah. 

I'll put it in the show notes. 

Definitely put put the tap trail map in there and you can pick up a map. There's actual printed map, and you go to these and they give you a sticker. And if you go to all of 'em, bring it back here, we give you, you know, you get a little bonus gift or whatever.

So, what, 

like a badge? 

Yeah. So kind of give a badge, kinda badge, I can't remember, but it's just, that's awesome. Just, I just got the report on that back for the first year of that, and I was stunned at how many people completed the whole map. I think there were 21 different locations. And how many people actually completed and got every single sticker came through.

How many people did it multiple times? It was, it, the numbers were phenomenal. So I think it's worth it. You know, that's a great way to get yourself around and see some of the places. I mean, there's some really neat. You know, Tri-Cities is sort of an interesting, you know, kind of an eclectic place built around the Manhattan Project really.

You know, so, so the community went from about 1800 people to 50,000 people. Almost overnight within, you know, within a year or so. And people came from all over the country to work on this project that they knew nothing about. Right? They were just helping the war effort, right. And did some remarkable things.

That Manhattan Project is the National Historical Park is a really neat component of the Tri-Cities. The B reactor's closed right now for some preservation work. When it opens up again, I would put that on your bucket list. Absolutely. Go see that. The, 

yeah. 

It's, you know, to stand in there and hear the tale of how this thing came together in 18 months from knowing nothing about what plutonium even was to creating the plutonium that could then create the atomic bomb.

It's 

bananas. 

Unbelievable. Yeah. And 

when you walk around Richland. You can see immediately the old part of town and you have the trail and the river there. It was a company town. All the buildings that was all set, they brought everybody together. Of course, Richland too. It's always funny.

It's got one of the highest percentages of PhDs, I think that and Hunts, Huntsville, Alabama, same thing. It's a nasa, it's like, this is where all the PhDs live, you know? But one of the coolest things you mentioned too about the whole Hanford reach and everything when they were looking for this area, and of course there's some sad parts of the story too.

People were evicted, there were towns that were closed and they, and the government said, get out. And nobody knew what's going on. But they had to have this huge buffer. And that buffer, in essence, lasted all these years. It was undeveloped and it became under, in 2000, Clinton signed it as a national monument.

It became one of the last large undeveloped parts of the sage shrub the shrub step, which is a very threatened area in the state. And so when you paddle, it's interesting, paddle down the river on the right. You're going down river, you don't wanna go up river. When you on the right, you're seeing all these reactors.

I'm like, oh my God. It's like, you know, the Cold War. And then on the left, it's all these dunes and natural areas. It is the craziest juxtaposition. One of the coolest paddles I've ever done. And of course you can hike on in, in the Hanford reach on the, in, in the natural area. It's all national Wildlife Refuge and all open and it's a totally different terrain.

There's nothing else like it in Washington. 

I'm so glad you brought that up. Craig you know that, that juxtaposition, like you say, I went out, I didn't paddle that. I went on a boat, a motorboat as part of the 25th anniversary of the Reach National Monument. Right? That's right. And so got to experience that from the river, see the elk and grazing on the one side, and , the reactors in the background.

What I think one of the things that the Tri-Cities does for a visitor is it helps you almost sometimes forces you to look inside. And start to do some per, you know, introspection of what do I believe, what do I really care about? What's really important. We have a,, this sounds maybe it sounds a little too deep.

Like, whoa, this is heavy. But, when I hike, that's a part of what I do. I get out in nature to help learn a little bit more about myself and I. Process my thoughts and I take my dog with me and he hears everything. And , you guys have been through that, but I think that's one of the things that the Tri-Cities does for, has, that is unique about itself as a destination, is that it almost begs you to ask hard questions.



And and then we've built sort of an entire marketing messaging strategy around that. We call it What's in You. And so as you get out and figure out what's inside of you, this community helps you figure that out. This. This place helps you see that and address some of those maybe more difficult decisions that were made historically.

Yeah. 

And then what do we do with it now? How do we go forward with it? And yeah. So you can do that in a landscape that is open and allows you to kind of clear your head and, you know. Find yourself, right? 

Yeah. 

Discover what's in you. 

Yeah. 

So anyway, yeah. Yeah. Some just sort of some perspective from my experience coming here.

Yeah. 

It's like, what did I get out of this experience? And that's what it's helping me do is understand Yeah. A little bit more about me, a little bit about my, my country and what ha , the historical aspects of, what got us to where we are. 

Yeah. Well Kevin, it has been such a pleasure talking with you about all this fun Tri-City stuff and we're excited to have some more fun episodes related to some of this in the next couple weeks.

So thank you for being here and sharing all this with us. 

Yeah, thanks Kevin. 

Thank you.







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